


Survival

by Anonymous



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Everybody is okay, Freezing, Gen, Happy Ending, Huddling For Warmth, Hurt Castiel (Supernatural), Hurt Jack Kline, Hurt/Comfort, Hypothermia, Ketch Helps (A Little), Rescue, Scared Castiel, Scared Jack Kline, Trapped in the Bunker, Winged Castiel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-22
Updated: 2019-02-22
Packaged: 2019-11-03 23:27:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17887148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: When Cas and Jack end up trapped in the bunker, they know it won’t be too long until they’re free, and that Dean and Sam are waiting for them outside.But when the heat turns off, and the temperature starts to plummet, Cas is left struggling to make sure Jack survives until they can get out.





	Survival

“What do you think?” Jack asked, his voice shaking so badly that Cas almost struggled to understand him.

He had stripped down to his shirt, and rolled up his sleeves, but honestly he was too scared to do more than peer at the inner workings of the old boiler. 

Dean was the expert in these things; Cas had no more idea what to do with it than he had when his truck had broken down.

And while Google had numerous entries on heating problems, Cas also knew that tinkering with a complicated system he knew nothing about it was in this instance extremely dangerous.

In the end, he stood up, and looked ashamedly at his son. 

“I’m sorry, Jack,” he said. “I don’t know what’s wrong, or how to fix it.”

And that was going to be a problem.

++

The bunker wasn’t really designed to hold heat, since the builders hadn’t probably considered there might be a need for it to do so, and since the concept of energy conservation hadn’t really existed back then.

Upon exploring his new home, once he realised it was his home, and getting a feel for the original members of the organisation, Castiel had come to the conclusion they considered themselves infallible.

Having had the dubious pleasure of meeting Arthur Ketch, he’d been convinced their opinions hadn’t changed.

But with a heating system that had worked adequately up until then, Sam and Dean hadn’t fretted overly much about the possibility of it breaking down.

Especially since Dean was able to repair most things, or had contacts that could and were trustworthy enough to be allowed inside the bunker.

And if the place simply got too cold in the meantime, there were motels and guest houses in town where they could stay until the problem was addressed.

But Dean wasn’t there, something Cas had been grateful for up until then, and for the same reason he wasn’t there, they couldn’t leave.

Whatever had sealed the bunker door had resisted all of Cas’s attempts to open it; it was as if the place had gone into lock down, the wards firing up.

While Cas could still access his Grace, the huge door that was normally protection for them was now a massive obstacle.

Though it felt ill advised to do so, Dean had decided there was no choice but to ask Ketch for help. After all, he knew the bunker well enough to be able to trap the brothers in it once before; he might know what had happened.

Or, Cas supposed, he might be behind it, but if that were so, Dean and Sam would quickly realise and force him to get them out.

Ketch, as it turned out, was innocent (this time) but he did have an explanation.

That the bunker was, in a way, simply a large machine, magical by nature, but as capable of malfunctions as anything else.

And it was malfunctioning, responding to a threat that didn’t exist, and sealing itself to protect its current occupants, namely Cas and Jack.

It would, he’d assured them all, with Dean’s phone on loudspeaker so the angel and the nephilim could hear too, reset itself, probably in no more than a few days, and then the door would open.

Distressing as it was for all of them, Cas and Jack trapped, and Sam and Dean stuck outside unable to get to them, it should have been fine.

Cas didn’t need food, but Jack did; however, Dean always made sure the pantry was kept fully stocked, and though Cas wasn’t anywhere as skilled as Dean at cooking, he knew he could manage to keep his son fed.

None of them had expected the heat to go off, though. 

And, with the temperature rapidly dropping, that changed things.

++

Cas had grabbed every blanket he could find, and wrapped Jack up in them. The higher they were in the bunker, the longer what was left of the heat should remain, so he’d encouraged Jack up the stairs, to take shelter by the door.

But eventually even blankets, and a hot water bottle, didn’t seem to help.

Jack was shuddering, and so miserable that Cas ached for him.

He was realising there was a very real possibility of Jack freezing to death down here, and that prompted him to call the brothers when he had previously decided not to.

There wasn’t anything they could do, that they hadn’t already tried, and he didn’t want them doing something reckless because they were all desperate.

But it was _Jack_ , and Cas knew they’d want to know, and he was scared himself, wanted to hear their voices and hopefully get some reassurance that it would be okay.

Even if was false.

He could hear the worry in the brothers’ voices when he told them what had happened.

Dean had left the phone with Sam for a minute or so, and Cas could hear him yelling at someone in the background.

He was back before long, and apparently Ketch had said it would be maybe three or four more hours, tops. 

Until then, there was no way in or out.

Cas wasn’t sure Jack would survive another three or four hours.

“You’ll think of something, Cas,” Sam had reassured him.

“Yeah,” Dean said. “C’mon, angel. You kept that little guy safe from Heaven _and_ Hell even before he made his first appearance. You’ve got this.”

Had he, though?

Cas put the phone away, ignoring the way his breath misted in the air, and climbed the steps to where Jack was huddled, miserable in the cold.

The blankets were as much use as if Cas had wrapped him in paper.

_Think of something_.

Cas swallowed, hard. There was only one thing, now, he could think of to do.

++

Jack whined as Cas tugged the blankets from his shivering grip.

“N-nno, Cas, I’m...I’m freezing, p-please….”

It broke his heart, but Cas persisted, pleading with Jack to trust him. If this worked, the blankets wouldn’t be needed, but Cas kept them close by in case some extra insulation was required.

And then he pulled Jack onto his lap, huddled him in close, and reached into the ether.

It hurt when he summoned his wings. But then they always hurt, though the pain was something he could push down and almost ignore when they were not on the physical plane.

Like this, though, he felt every cracked and broken bone, every swollen inch of flesh, the blocked solid oil gland a few inches out from his back.

He grit his teeth, and tried not to make a sound as he curved his wings around them.

Jack had closed his eyes, and Cas shook him, knowing he daren’t let the boy fall asleep. When he opened them, he stared in puzzlement at the dark cocoon surrounding them until he realised what it was.

“Cas...Your wings….”

He reached out, automatically, to touch, and Cas winced as he flexed them a little out of his son’s reach. Like this, even a brush of a finger would be agony.

“They’ll keep your warmer than the blankets,” he said. “Keep you warm enough until we can get out.”

Jack looked up at him, and Cas could see he was scared, and his fear was making him doubt.

“I won’t let you go, Jack,” he promised. “Just hold on to me and it’ll be alright.”

Jack did as he was told, slipping his chill hands under Cas’s shirt, warming them on his skin, and burrowing as deep into the angel’s embrace as he could.

Cas curved his wings in closer, feeling a pocket of heat build up around them, and hoped Ketch’s estimate wasn’t wrong.

++

When he heard the bunker door open, it was nearly two hours later, and almost immediately Dean and Sam came shoving through, yelling their names.

Cas felt their footsteps come to a sharp halt, no doubt having noticed them on the landing and probably taken aback at the sight.

The last time, he supposed, they’d seen his wings….

No. He wasn’t going to think on that, and he didn’t want them to either, so he carefully parted them, revealing Jack safe but asleep (naturally asleep, not because he was freezing to death) in his arms.

He tucked his wings away, and smiled with relief at his humans.

“You, uh….”. Dean started, and his face showed how he felt about what he’d seen. “You two okay?”

Cas nodded, and then Sam came forward, and lifted Jack carefully into his arms.

Jack made a small, discontented sound at being moved, but he soon settled down again and let Sam carry him downstairs.

Dean held out his hand to Cas, and got the angel onto his feet.

“Are you?”

Cas looked at him.

“Cas,” Dean said, sounding exasperated.

“You got to us in time,” Cas said, and frowned when Dean rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, I saw that. It’s not all I saw. Shit, Cas, what happened? How long…. Have they been like that since the fall?”

Cas looked away. He’d never expected the brothers to find out, and when Lucifer had…

All they would have seen then of his wings was the blackened imprint around him; nothing to really give away their condition.

And there was nothing to be done. Now his wings were back on the ether, Cas could distance himself from the pain.

But not, it seemed, from Dean. He was quickly pulled into Dean’s arms, and held there, but he made no attempt to extricate himself.

He wondered if Dean knew how comforting his touch was, how it could make someone feel safe.

He doubted it, knowing how fond Dean was of self-deprecation. Offering comfort and support by physical means was instinctive to him, and Cas wished Dean could see himself as the people who loved him did.

But, finally, Dean stepped back though he kept a hand around Cas’s upper arm, as if he’d feared losing Cas to the cold as well as Jack, and he needed that reassurance that it wasn’t so.

“C’mon,” he told Cas. “Let’s go see if our kid’s awake yet.”

He didn’t let go, not even when they followed Sam down to Jack’s room.


End file.
